Alton’s day of hoops

Alton senior Ky’Lun Rivers poses with his game MVP plaque with Southwest Illinois Jets Director Andre McMurray (left) and AHS head coach Dana Morgan at the inaugural Alton Shootout on Feb 1. The one-day event featured 14 teams and 7 games. It will expand to two days in 2021.

When Dana Morgan took over as varsity boys basketball head coach at Alton High, he had an idea.

Morgan has long worked on the AAU circuit with AHS grad Andre McMurray with the Southwest Illinois Jets Club and the two constructed the plan to start the Alton Shootout. McMurray is the director for the Jets.

Saturday marked what hopes to be the first of many for the community.

“Myself and Andre McMurray have been talking about this for a while,” Morgan said. “We have great contacts between our AAU program and we wanted to do something big for the community. Every community has something big going on except Alton. We do the Thanksgiving Tip-Off and we’re trying to grow that too, but we thought this would be great. I met with coach (Jeff) Alderman and it went well. I met with Mr. (Barry) Macias, he jumped on board and a lot of community leaders and they jumped on board. Just to see different parts of the community come together, regardless if it sold out or not, it’s just a great opportunity for people to come in and see that we have really good facilities and a really good community. I am ecstatic we pulled this off.”

Macias Insurance Agency Inc. in Godfrey served as title sponsor.

The Redbirds, who entered this week 11-12, played in the fifth of seven games on Saturday, defeating Decatur Eisenhower 67-52. Senior Ky’Lun Rivers poured in 24 points and was named the game’s MVP. Rivers was stoked to be a part of the event and earn a win on his home court.

“This is good for the community, they deserve it,” Rivers said. “They’ve never had anything like this, so it was important to come out and get a win for them.”

“With the Jets club, myself and Andre have really good connections and we believe in relationships,” Morgan said. “We had these teams in three and a half weeks because of the relationships we have. I’m real good friends with Mark Chambers (East St. Louis), I coached coach (Jeffrey) McCaw’s (Trinity) son with the Jets for a year and I have a great relationship with the Bosse coach. Mount Vernon’s starting 5 plays for the Jets, Belleville East, we have a good relationship with them. Being in AAU, you get to see a lot of these people on the road, so next year it’s going to be really good. It’s going to be a great 2-day event next season.”

The shootout also works as a great fundraiser for the program. Showcases like this have become a trend. Highland, East St. Louis, Edwardsville and O’Fallon all feature shootouts this season. Highland was sold out prior to the event. Civic Memorial had their first annual girls shootout this year.

Morgan addressed the amount of work that goes into pulling off a successful event, too.

“It’s a lot of meetings, coordinating with teams,” Morgan said. “Cahokia had a water issue, we had to make sure they were going to be here. It’s getting people with the hospitality room, the t-shirts, lots of volunteers here. Our freshmen and sophomore players had to work it, people in the concession stands, officials, table workers. There is a lot that goes into this. I’m going to sleep pretty good tonight.”